On May 12, newspaper headlines announced that President Clinton had proposed legislation to empower the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to crack down on errant companies that conceal reports on their products that injure and kill consumers. That date–May 12–was the second anniversary of our son Danny’s death. In 1998, 16-month-old Danny was one of too many children killed each year by lethal products in our homes, child-care centers and workplaces.
It was not the first time that a headline was so clearly tied to Danny’s death. Just days after he strangled at day care when a portable crib collapsed on his neck, we read that this very crib had been recalled years before. Because of the faulty product-recall system, however, few people knew about the recall or the crib’s dangers–not his doting family, not his wonderful child-care provider and not even the Department of Children and Family Services worker who had inspected the licensed day-care home only days before.
That news story so shocked us that we set out to prevent other children from dying unnecessary deaths from defective products. As Danny’s parents, we founded Kids In Danger, a non-profit organization dedicated to children’s product safety.
In our efforts to warn others, we discovered a system fraught with problems. On a national level, the CPSC relies on the good will of manufacturers to report dangerous products and to reach out to customers about recalls. It is hamstrung by a lid on penalties against renegade companies that do not comply. The CPSC is bound and gagged, an enforcement agency in a straitjacket. We found no state structure to make up for the federal shortfall. In Illinois, there was no system to communicate federal warnings or to prevent identified hazards from claiming more victims.
These flaws are unacceptable. So, with the help of State Sens. Carol Ronen (D-Chicago) and Tom Walsh (R-LaGrange Park) and others, especially the Coalition for Consumer Rights, we worked to pass the Children’s Product Safety Act in Illinois. That recently implemented law prevents the sale or lease of unsafe or recalled children’s products to unsuspecting consumers, and requires DCFS to check for recalled products as part of its child-care licensing procedure.
But that bill was just a start, a finger in the dike. As long as safety efforts remain hampered on a national level, the market can still be flooded with defective products; 250 to 300 are recalled each year. Most troubling, half of the most serious hazards are uncovered by CPSC investigators rather than reported by manufacturers. The White House legislative proposal announced on the anniversary of Danny’s death could change that. It would lift the lid on penalties for failing to report a product danger and give the agency more recall authority.
Absolutely nothing can make up for losing a child. That is precisely why Kids In Danger is committed to protecting our nation’s children. Any deaths we prevent are, in a way, Danny’s gift to other families–a gift of life.
